


Oracle for Eye

by sunspeared



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Aspectswap, Doomed Timelines, Gen, Grimdark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-27
Updated: 2012-12-27
Packaged: 2017-11-22 15:03:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/611123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunspeared/pseuds/sunspeared
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>AA: if y0u l00k far en0ugh y0u can watch the m0ment 0f y0ur 0wn death<br/>AA: if y0u l00k hard en0ugh y0u can even kn0w which death is the true 0ne<br/>TT: And why wouldn't I be concerned about that? If I make mistakes, the dead Roses start piling up.<br/>TT: Dead Roses are the enemy, remember?</i>
</p><p>Rose struggles under the burden of being Seer of Time--Aradia is, possibly, there to help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oracle for Eye

**Author's Note:**

  * For [warlike](https://archiveofourown.org/users/warlike/gifts).



> A doomed timeline version of an aspectswap AU. I'd had the idea of Seer of Time!Rose kicking around in my head for a while, and I'd never written Aradia seriously before this fic, and so had I had a lot of fun with this! Endless thanks to my kind alpha and beta readers, for papshooshing me and for unfucking this fic (y'all know who you are).

_'Who could snap off the shapeless print _  
_From your to-morrow-treading shade _  
_With oracle for eye?' _  
_Time kills me terribly. _  
_'Time shall not murder you,' He said, _  
_'Nor the green nought be hurt; _  
_Who could hack out your unsucked heart, _  
_O green and unborn and undead?' _  
_I saw time murder me. _

Dylan Thomas, "Then Was My Neophyte"

*

\-- apocalypseArisen [AA] began trolling terreneTessitura [TT] \--

AA: cut it 0ut!  
AA: CUT IT 0UT CUT IT 0UT CUT IT 0UT  
TT: Hi.  
AA: CUT IT 0UT  
TT: It's my world. I'm entitled to a bit of remodeling, aren't I?  
TT: Give me one good reason to quit.  
AA: 0k i guess thats m0re imp0sing when im smacking s0me0ne ar0und  
AA: let me try  
AA: hell0 r0se im an alien gh0st in a r0b0t body and als0 the maid 0f time f0r my sessi0n and it is very nice t0 make y0ur acquaintance  
AA: i can see all of y0ur timeline but im keeping 0ur c0nversati0ns linear f0r simplicitys sake and als0 because skipping ar0und is f0r pe0ple wh0 think time is a t0y  
AA: anyway i w0uld appreciate it very much if y0u w0uld st0p destr0ying y0ur w0rld  
AA: even th0ugh its fun  
TT: A robot body. More Cylon, or more Cyberman? Iron Man? Tin Man?  
AA: t0ugh ch0ice  
AA: n0t the p0int  
TT: You're a robot. You understand the need for precision. I need to know what I'm dealing with, here.  
AA: if i had to pick id say ir0n man  
AA: but despite his wealth and highbl00d status ir0n tr0ll 0nly narr0wly escaped summary culling f0r his defective bloodpusher by making himself invaluable t0 the empire and surrendering his designs immediately  
AA: s0 n0 that d0esnt w0rk  
AA: tin man i guess  
AA: if y0u want t0 be heavy handed with it  
AA: y0ure n0t really a subtle pers0n th0ugh s0 ill let it slide  
AA: m0re accurately im in a s0ulbot  
TT: Robot ghost or ghost robot?  
AA: b0th  
AA: theres n0t much 0f a difference when y0u get d0wn t0 it  
AA: 0h i see y0uve destroyed another temple  
AA: with y0ur vi0lin b0w c0mb0 thing  
AA: very un0rth0d0x interpretation 0f the theme but i like it  
TT: I'm touched by your approval.  
AA: there g0es an0ther 0ne  
AA: its 0k that wasnt an imp0rtant temple  
AA: y0u can st0p any time n0w  
TT: It's target practice.  
AA: see that was a j0ke  
AA: i kn0w what t0 say  
AA: ha  
AA: ha  
TT: Hee hee.  
TT: Hoo hoo.  
AA: yes that is acceptable  
TT: You still haven't given me a reason to stop.  
AA: what if i said there was s0mething m0re fun t0 d0

*

Her first puzzle was to get her land moving again.

The Land of Rain and Clockwork was a series of cogwheel walkways suspended over a network of rivers, high enough to make Rose dizzy if she looked down over the edge. They were made of packed dirt, and they merged into the towering contrivances of gears which, in theory, would power the unmoving stone orreries she had to pick her way under on her way to collect the pieces of the broken gearbox that was the flaw in the circuit. Aradia was with her every step of the way.

The nakodiles stayed well out of her way, except the ones who decided—by whatever game-logic gave them their intelligence—that it would be wiser to be the Seer of Time's vanguard, and lead her triumphant into the temple where the generator was housed.

The land started over not with a bang, but with a low, agonized groan that shook Rose to her teeth. The great cogwheels of earth turned for the first time in what could have been centuries, but was really the two hours since she'd entered the game. The orreries sent torrents of rock dust and dirt down into the rivers; the endless rain wet the component parts down as fast as they could grind away at each other.

Rose took her first step out of the temple. It should have been maddening—the steady ticking. The heartbeat of a world. She found it soothing. Even the rain gave her a wide berth as she walked.

AA: see  
AA: wasnt that c00ler than breaking things  
TT: Don't get excited; I'm shallow and crass. I'm only in it for the minions.  
TT: And the shoes.  
AA: if y0u spend any m0re grist 0n alchemitizing 0utfits im cutting y0u 0ff  
TT: I'd like to see you try.

*

Next: checking on John, who'd gone missing from her viewport in his search for the Forge. Checking on Dave, who was busy chatting with a troll. Jade had entered the session without incident, and had cheerfully alchemitized herself an arsenal fit for a king, or to kill a king—

TT: I'd roll out the welcome mat, but I'm on another planet.  
TT: The Pacific doesn't seem so big now, does it?  
TT: Dave should be headed to join you, and you'll see John on Prospit.  
GG: hold on  
GG: me and ragdollsprite are under attack so ill get back to you later :DDD

\-- gardantGnostic is an idle chum! --

*

AA: i can see the future a little  
AA: any time player can  
AA: 0r maybe we just feel it  
AA: but y0u have all 0f time laid 0ut f0r y0ur perusal  
AA: if y0ure brave en0ugh to l00k  
TT: And if the glimpse drives me mad?  
AA: it w0nt  
AA: i have faith in y0u  
TT: Not, "It's guaranteed n0t t0 drive y0u insane, g0 ahead and take a big peek r0se"?  
AA: if y0u were interested in y0ur pers0nal safety y0u w0uldnt be playing this game  
AA: 0k i have run the numbers and my highly advanced r0b0tic s0rting alg0rithms say theres a 92% chance y0u w0nt g0 mad if y0u take a peek  
TT: You just made that up.  
AA: beep b00p  
AA: s0 what

*

She lifted her violin to her chin. She closed her eyes. She didn't recognize the music she played, and the sound of it dulled to a rush of white nose in her ears.

Two days into the game on the land of Shade and Frogs, John brought down his hammer on the anvil in the Forge, and his entire world lit up. On the Land of Wind and Heat, she saw Dave die—the red stain spread out from the center of his tie, out, saturating the fabric of his shirt, meeting its match at his lapels. 

On the Land of Light and Frost: Jade's skin turned black, and she cracked her planet to the core with one improbable shot from her rifle.

She followed the paths forward another day, as far as she could go: the Land of Rain and Clockwork, its rivers dried up in their beds, its great cogwheels of earth unmoving once more. _Dave,_ Rose saw herself say, standing before Jade—their Witch of Light, a gamebreaker in and of herself, even unsupplemented by whatever had broken into her mind and moved her— _Dave,_ she said, _do the windy thing._

TT: And how do I know if what I see is true?  
AA: its all true  
AA: but thats n0t what matters

Or: _John,_ Rose said, _flank her._

AA: what really matters is

Or: red-robed and standing tall, she pulled back her deep hood. John fell back. Dave, sword unsheathed and still wet with her blood, stayed exactly where he was—at her side. Jade's smile was benevolent and pitying, and beyond her teeth there was nothing but a yawning blackness.

 _Wait,_ Rose said, _let me._

AA: what d0 y0u want t0 be true?

*

GG: ok that was quick!  
TT: That was twelve hours.  
GG: hee i know  
GG: the imps havent let up since i got here but me and bec and ragdollsprite are doing our best  
GG: its really pretty here on lolaf :D  
GG: its not even cold!!! youd think itd be cold, but its not, this isnt really snow  
GG: but you can still make snowballs out of it >:DDD  
GG: and dave says lowah isnt really hot either  
GG: i havent heard from john in a little while but i guess hes busy with his frogs  
TT: I should get to him.  
GG: psssh you have time, i think hes still looking for the forge  
GG: one of the stupid trolls has him going off on sidequests D:  
GG: have you heard from any of them??  
TT: Just the one, fortunately. Have they been bothering you?  
GG: nooo theyre all really really nice to me  
GG: kanaya keeps telling me to get rid of the orb though  
TT: The orb.  
GG: its really handy! i can analyze the chemical, atomic, and quantum structures of anything i come across with it :B  
GG: and sometimes it lets me see things in the rest of our session  
GG: its like looking into the clouds of skaia but even better!!!  
TT: Can I take a peek at it, when I get to you? I find myself uniquely qualified to pass judgment on all matters ocular and oracular. All in the game, really.  
GG: hahahahaha  
GG: but no i dont think that would be a good idea  
GG: sorry rose :(

*

Three hours until a troll tricked Dave into reaching God Tier, for reasons the game was not interested in revealing to Rose, and which Rose didn't need to know. Five hours until John successfully stoked the Forge. In all timelines where Rose failed to allow events to take their natural course, neither happened.

Rose expanded her sight _wider_ , rather than _farther_. Even with her violin as the focus for her powers—what was music but ordered time? It made sense for her to be its Seer—her stomach cramped; she retched; her fingers and toes went cold and numb from the strain. Aradia hadn't mentioned this, but Aradia couldn't have known, could she have? Eight hours, maximum, until Jade harnessed—was harnessed by—the powers from beyond the stars. The timelines showed her a half-dozen ways it could happen, but all converged on the point when it _did._

She could see no farther—as if someone had torn entire pages from a score she'd been reading. All possible approaches Aradia for a hint of what happened beyond the wall in her head ended in Aradia's flat refusal. 

_I have no one else to turn to,_ she thought, coming back to herself. She massaged the blood back into her fingers, wiggling them one by one, then pulled up Pesterchum.

*

TT: And I can't tell Jade, either, because it won't help. In some versions, it even speeds up the process. I'm stuck.  
TT: You said time wasn't a toy.  
AA: thats because its a game  
AA: the 0ne we are best at!  
TT: Games are fun until they're over, and you look back and realize that, for some stupid reason, you weren't having any fun at all.  
AA: but y0ure having fun arent y0u  
TT: The most fun I've ever had, considering my imminent and probable demise.  
AA: d0nt think like that  
AA: y0u deal in certainties  
AA: n0t pr0babilities 0r f0rtune  
AA: s0 d0nt w0rry  
AA: if y0u l00k far en0ugh y0u can watch the m0ment 0f y0ur 0wn death  
AA: if y0u l00k hard en0ugh y0u can even kn0w which death is the true 0ne  
TT: And why wouldn't I be concerned about that? If I make mistakes, the dead Roses start piling up.  
TT: Dead Roses are the enemy, remember?  
AA: y0ud think s0  
AA: w0uldnt y0u

*

Hers was to look into Time, to direct her teammates, not to utilize her aspect. Rose had only one self, and only one death to die.

She had to make it _count._

The quest bed was meant to be on top of a promontory, or at least Dave's had been. (Would be.) Her land had no mountains, but it was a system, and every system had a center. She couldn't move, but she could look forward and backwards. She beat back a surge of panic: she was born for this. There was no time to doubt herself. She locked her knees and played a high, thin note on her violin, steeling herself for the glimpse.

The path she was on now provided the power for an orrery of a binary star system with twelve tiny planets weaving between the two suns, and this in turn passed the power along to keep another yet walkway running. All she had to do was trace a single impulse back through time and find its source. 

It was appropriate, that she and Dave be god tier together. It was symmetrical, balanced, pleasing. Everything falling into place. She held onto this thought and played on until she couldn't feel her hands, until blood ran from her nose and past her parted lips, until she saw an alabaster temple. 

Looming over the temple, the central gearshaft of the world. 

Atop the gearshaft, a bed of red stone. 

She nearly flung the violin away from her.

*

TT: One question.  
AA: sh00t  
TT: Why are you helping me?  
TT: If you're really helping me, that is, and not sending me to my inevitable ruin by making me awaken my seer powers before their time.  
TT: If I hadn't seen this future and decided to prevent it, would it have come to pass?  
AA: 0h n0 n0 n0 its n0thing like that  
AA: its exactly because im tired 0f c0nsci0usly c0ntributing t0 inevitable 0utcomes  
AA: and the s00ner the seer sees the better really  
TT: The strategist class. The maestro.  
AA: y0ur r0le is t0 master all 0f y0ur aspect  
AA: every aspect 0f y0ur aspect 0u0  
AA: that just slipped 0ut hahahaha  
AA: it hasnt happened in a while  
AA: 0u0 0u0 0u0  
TT: 0v0?  
AA: 0v0 !  
AA: yes yes a chirpbeast  
AA: but w0uld y0u have rather been s0mething 0ther than a seer  
AA: its 0k every0ne thinks ab0ut it  
TT: A Prince? It feels like it would have been more fitting.  
AA: y0u are n0t a destr0yer r0se!  
TT: Aren't I?  
AA: well y0ure n0t a savi0r either  
AA: but its n0t ab0ut wh0 y0u are  
AA: 0r what y0u want  
AA: its ab0ut wh0 y0u can be  
TT: It's about what the game can mold me into.  
AA: and als0 h0w well it can feed int0 y0ur vanity and keep y0u playing  
TT: Thereby ensuring its propagation.  
AA: thats the spirit  
AA: i had a friend just like y0u 0nce  
TT: What happened to her? Him.  
AA: he killed me  
AA: its kind 0f a l0ng st0ry!  
TT: Do you want to talk about it? I have time.  
AA: we b0th kn0w y0u d0nt  
TT: I can make time.  
TT: ... No, you're right.  
TT: Tell me about it when we win, then. Okay?  
AA: i will!   
AA: n0w take care 0f y0urself y0u have a l0ng way t0 g0

*

Six hours and forty-nine minutes later, the Land of Light and Frost went dark.

Seven hours and twelve minutes later, Rose reached the central gearshaft. In no timeline would she ask someone else to do this for her. Her violin's offensive capabilities were all sound-related; it was a matter of aiming the correct note at herself. It was a gentle slipping-away, really—far quieter than she'd hoped for. 

She did not rise in a hurricane, as Dave had. She jolted upright and was blinded by her own land: every drop of rain, every movement of every gear, made a trail for her eyes, and for five long minutes she couldn't make sense of it. Then her vision narrowed to only the present, and she fumbled blindly for her violin and bow and clutched them to her chest, rocking back and forth until her heart stopped its snare-drum beating. She stood up. She was steady on her feet. A minute and a half until Dave pestered her. 

TG: oh shit weve got a problem  
TG: its jade  
TG: i can feel it in the air man somethings up with her  
TG: her viewports dark shes not responding and all of a sudden theres a massive crater on the other side of my planet  
TG: this aint calculus  
TT: I'm here, I'm waiting, we have a full day.  
TG: im headed for john and then well come to you  
TG: dont tell me you knew this was coming  
TG: and that you couldve prevented this  
TT: Nothing could have prevented this. In every timeline imaginable, Jade went, for lack of a better word, grimdark, and in all of the ones where I told you and John, it didn't help. To say the least.  
TG: dont give me that inevitability shit  
TG: nothings inevitable  
TG: actually you know what go ahead and give it to me but give it to me when i get to you  
TG: just stay put

EB: rose!  
EB: rose!!!!!!!!!!!!  
EB: jade just passed by. i'm headed for you. don't go anywhere!  
EB: i don't know what happened to her, but it's not good.  
EB: i should have followed her straightaway and slapped her out of that silly old trance.  
EB: or something.  
TT: One is not easily shaken from the broodfester tongues, John.  
TT: They are stubborn throes.  
TT: Besides, I don't think she would have taken kindly to it.  
TT: I'm staying put. You're staying put. Dave is coming to you. Fix the sword, then come to me, and then we'll slap Jade out of it together.  
EB: you have a plan, don't you.  
EB: and for stupid seer reasons you can't tell me the plan because i'll mess it up, like back to the future but worse.  
TT: Yes. That's exactly it.  
EB: bluh!  
EB: i trust you.

*

"So we weren't enough," Dave said, in the shade of an orrery of their solar system, a complete one, accurate down to the movements of Jupiter's moons. He ran his fingers over the meteor-pitted replica of Earth. "Now what?"

Jade had reduced them all to their component parts. The game had reassembled Rose and Dave piece by agonizing piece, starting with their minds. In a world where she'd been two feet to the left, she'd have shielded John from the blast, and her death would have been final. She could not stop herself drilling down the causal chains; they were a constant background noise in her skull. "How should I know?" she said. 

"So look into the future, or whatever--no, forget that," said Dave, "you did that"--he gestured to her robe--"to yourself, and you did it alone. Me and John should've been there with you." 

"So?" 

"So you didn't have to be alone," he said. 

"So it's a bit late in the day to berate me for it," Rose said. A stiff breeze picked up and plastered Rose's hood to the side of her face, so that she had to pull it back and look at him. It caught the orrery's arms, too, and it was a testament to the thing's delicacy that it swayed in the wind. "What do we do now?" 

The wind subsided. Dave floated to the top of the orrery, to sit on the sun. She opened her laptop and began typing a message to Aradia when, buried beneath the cascade of windows on her screen, she saw: 

GG: rose  
GG: rose becs dead DDDDDD:  
GG: there were too many of them and they TOOK him  
GG: and i dont know what to do  
GG: i have not ever been this angry before!  
GG: im going to go take care of this MYSELF  
GG: ill talk to you when were all together ok??

"We lost," Rose said, and Dave settled on the ground behind her before she got the first syllable out, as she'd known he would. "We can't finish the game with a dead Heir and Witch." 

"The trolls aren't talking to me, either," he said. "If you could travel back in time--" 

"I can't," she said, "you know I can't." 

"If I'd been the Time player," he said, "I could. Or Jade, because a Witch of Time would've been fuckin' incredible--or even John. Maybe this is all wrong," Dave said. "Maybe everything's wrong." 

His breath caught in his throat. She stood and turned around to find him with his sword clenched in one hand and shoulders hunched. The wind moved in lazy circles between them him--in one timeline, if she said nothing, it would take all of three minutes for it to pick up into a full-fledged tornado. 

"Everything _is_ wrong," she said. "Come here, Dave."

*

TT: There was never any hope for me, was there.  
TT: You said you were tired of obeying fate.  
AA: and y0u were fated to die if i did n0thing  
TT: This isn't the alpha timeline.  
AA: n0  
TT: Paradox space is going to weed us out.  
TT: Is in the process of weeding us out. Picking us off.  
AA: s0 it seems  
AA: but even th0ugh an unc0untable number 0f r0se lal0ndes are c0ming t0 that very realizati0n this same instant in ten th0usand milli0n d00med sessi0ns  
AA: n0ne 0f them are y0u  
AA: n0ne 0f them are the seer 0f time  
AA: this is a 0ne 0f a kind 0ffsh00t!  
TT: Is that supposed to be comforting?  
AA: yes  
AA: did it w0rk  
TT: Yes. You've finally gotten to me. Just when I'd thought there could not be a single person in any universe more charmingly, tactlessly morbid than I am, you come sweeping into my short life like an implausible analogy.  
AA: 0v0  
TT: But I'm going to die here, and none of this mattered.  
AA: i think it did!  
TT: Because every doomed timeline serves to reinforce the alpha timeline, and without paradox space's relentless testing out and discarding of every possibility, the real events of the game wouldn't unfold. We're the scaffolding. We're the sacrifices. I know now.  
AA: yes theres that  
AA: but all the timelines are true  
AA: and in 0ne timeline at least  
AA: y0u made me very happy r0se  
TT: And I'm fine with it, you know? I can see past the block now. I know what's going to happen. I'm fine with a lot of things.  
TT: Arrivederci, Megid0.  
AA: g00d night r0se  



End file.
